Photos: Kids bicycle races at the Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Festival. How about for Northfield?

The kids bike races at last weekend’s Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Festival in Crosby, MN were a huge hit: lots of kids participating, lots of people watching and cheering with big smiles.

The kids were grouped into four age categories (something like ages 1-3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-10) and they rode one loop on the grass around the edge of Crosby Memorial Park, adjacent to the bandstand and cook shack. The top three finishers in the two youngest classes then ran a second race, as well as the top three finishers in the two oldest classes. The parents of those 12 kids then raced each other, competing on their kids’ bikes. Hilarious.

Could one of the local bicycle shops take on the organization of the event, or maybe some other non-profit or association? It could be held close to downtown, eg, Ames Park, Central Park, Riverside Park, or Babcock Park.

6 thoughts on “Photos: Kids bicycle races at the Cuyuna Lakes Mountain Bike Festival. How about for Northfield?”

My husband Todd is an avid mountain biker and we attend races with our children throughout the summer. Our six and three year old have been doing these “races” for years and love them. I think it would be a great addition to any of our festivals.

Griff, there is a kids race every year in Northfield during the Northfield Criterium, that Milltown Cycles sponsors.

Our kids have “raced” in it for the past five or six years and love it.

The whole day of racing is a wonderful event, but it is sadly under-promoted by the Chamber, CVB, NDDC and others. So, attendance is very low compared to what it could be. I know that the organizers do their best to promote the event to the cycling community, but there are many businesses and hotels that could benefit from making this event more widely known as a tourist draw.

David, I had no idea there was a kids bike race during the 4th of July criterium. I see Ben Witt has a new blog post up (It’s that time again) and the kids race is at 1:50 pm. I plan to be there to take photos. Thanks for the alert.

Thanks for that, Todd… Jim Fisher alerted me a week ago and I’d forgotten about it. Jim wrote on June 11:

Ben is riding the tour divide from Banff to the Mexican border. Currently he is in 15th and headed to the within 70 miles of the US border. this link http://trackleaders.com/tourdividei.php?name=Ben_Oney has almost real time updates. It get a bit confusing because when he stops to rest it doesn’t say stopped, it just shows his ave. speed slowly declining. Average speed is also somewhat relative, 5000′ on the divide.